"You met me at a very strange time in my life." – Fight Club

Q&A Sunday – Ken Burns’ Oranges, and My Tomato Defense

Buck, appalled by cactus graffiti. This photo has nothing to do with anything, I just liked it.

Buck:Why aren’t you here fixing this for me? Fix this.

Me: I can’t fix it from here. I’ll try and talk you through it. What did you do to it? Unplug it. Unplug the router and let it reset.

Buck: Okay . . . I did it . . . Windows is coming back up . . . Okay. . . Seems to be working.

Me:[silence]

Buck: What are you doing?

Me: I’m reading The Boston Globe. It’s tiny now, it’s about seven inches wide and I’m not kidding. It’s like the Newspaper of Record for Alice in Wonderland, only instead of saying Drink Me it says Read Me.

Buck: It wants to be smaller than TheHerald. It was successful for The Herald, so The Globe wants to do it, too. Pretty soon they’ll both be like those tiny novelty Bibles people give away.

Me: The mini Bibles, they hide them in bushes and stuff so you can find them.

Buck: I just found one of those little mini Bibles here in our house. It was in my desk drawer.

Me: I know, it’s mine. I got it from a sagebrush at a rest area, it was tucked in the branches.

Buck: What?

Me: You know the place. The big ladies room with no roof? It’s perfectly huge and normal, except they didn’t put a roof on it. It’s right as you come into El Paso County from the direction of that dusty speck of a townTommy Lee Jones lives in. The one I said we should live in too, so we wouldn’t have to have glass in the windows, we could just hang rags? You said no because we’d probably wake up some morning to find Tommy Lee Jones passed out in our horse trough, or whatever those things are in people’s yards —

Buck: Van Horn.

Me: Yes. I love Van Horn. I found it at the rest area between Van Horn and El Paso. I thought it was cute. That’s why the Bible people put them there, so you’ll take them. I took it and put it with my miniature copy of The MooseWood Cookbook I keep in your desk.

Buck: You didn’t want any drawers. You said you wanted a big glass table desk like somebody on Wall Street in the year 2525.

Me: And that’s exactly what I have and I love it so much, thank you again. Anyways, it’s Sunday and even though I can’t get to freaking WiFi connection till morning, I still want to do the Sunday Q&A for my blog.

Buck: Yeah?

Me: I read in The Boston Globe that Ken Burns? The PBS guy?

Buck: Yeah?

Me: He lives in New Hampshire. Were you aware of that?

Buck: Hardly.

Me: Well anyway, I read in TheBoston Globe that he’s advertising his new documentary on oranges.

Buck: He’s WHAT?

Me: He’s advertising his new documentary about World War II, it’s called The War, on oranges. Orange, citrus, fruit. Oranges.

Buck: Ken Burns is losing it. What will his next food ad be for the Korean War? Hey, these breakfast sausages are telling me to watch Ken Burns’ Korean War documentary, so I guess I better be sure and set the Tivo —

Me:Is he doing the Korean War too now? Becausehe’s eating up all the wars, what if I wanted to do something on the Kor —

Buck:No, but it would make sense for that to be his next one if he’s already doing World War II. That orange thing . . . What a weird . . . Jesus. For someone like me who can’t eat citrus, I’d never even know this thing is going to be on.

Me: Well, he’s also advertising it on Bank of America bank statements, but that wouldn’t work for you either, because that’s not your bank.

Me: Your imitation of Ken Burns sounds suspiciously like your imitation of me, and also the dogs. I think your range of voice imitations is limited —

Buck: Are you supposed to keep that orange and save it to eat during the show? So that all of a sudden there are two-million oranges being bitten into at the same time all over America?

Me:Well, The Globe says it’s twenty-five million oranges that have the ad on them —

Buck: That is insane. It’slike that guy who wrote us a letter and wanted us to pay him to tattoo the magazine logo on his forehead.

Me:We would never do that. Because they’re already doing it at Go Daddy dot com.

Buck: He wasn’t even asking for much money. Actually, it was pretty cheap. I was gonna come up with something for him to get tattooed on his head, but after he got it what would we do with him? We’d own him, and we didn’t want him.

Me: NO. WAY.

Buck: I was in two supermarkets yesterday and I didn’t see a single Ken Burns’ War orange. Geez, I would have bought a bunch of them. This must be all about the press he’s getting for doing it, that’s all I can figure.

Me: Cuz it’s stupid, right? What is our stance on this? I vote that we think it’s stupid.

Buck: Yeah. Our official policy on this will be that it’s stupid, but we will definitely buy them if we can find them. Now I gotta go fish through the trash for The El Paso Times and see if it’s in there and I somehow missed it. That’s just insane . . .

Me: Man, Ken Burns isfifty-four? He looks like he’s nineteen, maybe twenty. He could be a college kid. I’d expect Ken Burns to live in a dorm with a Reservoir Dogs poster on his wall and a bong hidden under his mattress. How does he arrest the aging process?

Buck: He’s part of that new subgroup of humans, like that Harry Potter kid. Oh my God. I just Googled it and here it is. It’s not just on oranges . . . IT’S ON 623,000 DOZEN EGGS! Because both were rationed during World War II . . . and it’s advertised on Bud beer cans distributed in military bases world wide. Wha . . . what the hell is PBS coming to? AND WE’RE PAYING FOR THIS? We’re paying for this!

Me: Not me, pal. I NEVER give money to PBS anymore because they stopped giving away the umbrellas and the passes to New England Aquarium. Now they make you choose one or the other, which is a rip off because you can get the passes for free at any public library. PBS is the Mafia.

Buck: NO. It’s coming out of our taxes. We’re paying ten-million dollars for Ken Burns to advertise on eggs and oranges. It’s also kind of insulting that regular people get oranges and eggs, breakfast foods, while the military personnel are only getting the ads on beer. Apparently they think the military people just get up and start drinking —

Me: I wonder if it will work.

Buck: Probably, because for one thing people will go and look for Ken Burns food. I’m gonna have to start going to the grocery store every day and demanding the Ken Burns oranges. I wonder, since Ken Burns food is subsidized, will the stuff be slightly cheaper?

Me: That would be good.

Buck: I wonder how long it will be before all our fruit and produce has advertising on it? Heinz Ketchup advertising for blood drives. Eggs will be advertising birth control, there’ll be a Trojan ad on the side of every egg.

Me: Elijah Wood.

Buck: What about him? What the hell as he done now? I had a nightmare when they showed him in that children’s dance video on The Soup. I know he was the reason I slept so bad.

Me: He’s done nothing. That I know of. But he’s part of that new subgroup of humans that Ken Burns is in. Speaking of subgroups. Were you listening to Coast to Coast last night?

Buck: I did, but I don’t remember what I heard before I started drooling like Homer Simpson and fell asleep.

Me: I didn’t hear it either. I don’t have a radio. But I meant to download an older show, from a Friday Night Bizarre Stories Hotline. Keith in San Antonio got things started by recalling the time a mysterious stranger with a bloody open head wound followed him around the mall.

Buck: Are you reading that off something?

Me: Yeah, the note I printed out for myself from the Coast to Coast website.

Buck:We already heard that show with the head wound ghost, or Shadow Person or whatever.

Buck:You did hear it. We discussed it the next morning, and we were laughing.

Me: What you’re saying to me right now, it’s all clicks and whistles. I don’t recall ever hearing that head wound ghost show or laughing about it afterwards.

Buck: We were laughing . . . you said it sounded like American Werewolf in London when Dominic Dunn’s son was decomposing in a movie theater while he sat next to the guy from the Dr. Pepper commercials.

Me: GriffinDunn was rotting away while sitting next to David Dr. Pepper Naughton to warn him he was going to turn into a werewolf. Cuz Griffin was already dead from the werewolf, so he knew.

Buck: You remember now?

Me: No. I just remember American Werewolf because I’ve seen it a hundred times. But inside my own head right now is the first I’ve heard of this. I hate to admit it, but sometimes even though I’m talking to you I don’t really listen to what either of us are saying. It’s a bad habit, I know, but I can’t help it. It’s probably a form of A.D.D.

Buck: You live in Shadowville.

Me: It’s called Shadow World. But mostly they say World of the Shadow People.

Buck: [sound of disgust] Sorry I got the name wrong. [laughing] Of your hometown. Are you the new mayor?

Me: [laughing]Ville sounds so flippant and cavalier. Like squaresville, or Keeblerville where those poorly-drawn elves make Keebler Tollhouse Cookies. Which I never understood because the Tollhouse was right over here in Whitman. It used to be so expensive there. I only remember going once, with my family when I was little, for dinner on my birthday, and they gave us a bag of Tollhouse cookies, the real ones —

Buck:I don’t understand how I talked to you about Coast to Coast for ten years before you’d listen to it. You were a blank wall, I couldn’t get through.

Me: Whatever. We change as we get older. Unlike that new subgroup of humans, our appearance changes —

Buck: Yes, thank you for reminding me. I might have forgotten about the aging process for five or ten seconds.

Me: Well it’s the best analogy I have to illustrate change. I used to hate tomatoes. Now I love them.

Buck:Yeah, but it’s your standard answer for everything.

Me: I can’t think of anything else I like now that I didn’t like when I was younger. I hated Coast to Coast and tomatoes. Now I love them both. What do you want from me? Oh wait . . . eggs on hash. When I was kid, the very idea of that would have made me puke. Now I like it, although I don’t order it. If you made it for me, I’d eat it, though. We should have that when I get back to El Paso —

Buck:Eggs and hash is the quickest way I know to an upset stomach.

Me:Is it? Is it really?

Buck: Well, probably not with the Ken Burns’ eggs. I tell you what, you get me some Ken Burns’ eggs and I’ll make you eggs on hash.

Me: If I get the Ken Burns’ oranges will you make my beverage a Ken Burns’ screwdriver with Absolute?

Eveytime i see Elisha Wood, or however you spell it, i think of him in Sin City. He was that little weirdo that ate all those women and kept the heads on his wall. That was him in his truest form, all hunched over like a freak, with beady little eyes. I loved when Micky Rourke killed him.

@ Max
Me too! He was so creepy in Sin City, and I do believe that was his truest form. But what’s weird is, at first I thought it was the Harry Potter kid.

@ Susan
Australia! Could it be possible that someone messed up and Australia has OUR Ken Burns food? I will flip out if this is the case. And it could very well be the case, because I’ve been to two supermarkets so far and haven’t seen a single Ken Burns orange.

forgot to tell how much I laughed at the elijah wood video ! I cant believe how strange he would have to be to say yes to such a thing ! Thanks for telling us about it . I just keep looking at it . Its soo weird . Jo-ann

@ David – Hey, thanks for reading this! That photo is from one of the mountain bike race we used to put on, The Mother Of All Mountain Bike Rides. Buck had a bicycle shop for 12 years. We actually did a half-hour cable TV show about it, and if I ever figure out how to transfer that onto the computer, I’ll run some clips.

I use the purple text whenever I’m trying to differentiate between speaking out loud and laughing, or sighing, or groaning or whatever. I don’t know how else to do it. I can’t use Italics because I talk in Italics. So I use the purple. 🙂

[…] Surrounded by cactus and dirt and fearing I would drive right into Van Horn (home of the dreaded Tommy Lee Jones, whom I am terrified of running into because I blog about often), I pulled over to the side of the […]